The life of an American TV legend

Norman Lear wants to show you his scrapbook, and—after 92 years—it’s a pretty thick one. Although he established himself as a comedy writer at the dawn of television in 1950, writing for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Lear didn’t really become a public figure until the 1970s. During that golden decade, he revolutionized TV with such socially conscious sitcoms as “All in the Family,” “Sanford and Son,” “Maude,” “Good Times,” “The Jeffersons” and “One Day at a Time.” Unlike the comedies that preceded them, these series explored such touchy subjects as racism, ethnic prejudices, homophobia, women’s rights, abortion, sex education and single parenthood.

Don't cross a double-crosser

Real life spy Kim Philby had a level of charm that fictional spy James Bond could only aspire to. To meet Philby, it seemed, was to fall under his convivial sway. Thus, when it was disclosed in 1963 that this very proper, well-placed and Cambridge-educated Englishman had been spying for the Soviet Union since 1934, two people were particularly shaken by the revelation: Nicholas Elliott, his longtime drinking buddy and colleague at MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service, and James Angleton, the zealous spymaster at America’s Central Intelligence Agency. Both men had regarded Philby as the supreme exemplar of their shadowy trade. Of course, he was.

Two sides of a cultural coin

Although he speaks repeatedly of his “two Italies”—a phrase he borrows from the poet Shelley—Joseph Luzzi is neither fully at home among the coarse elements of Calabrian culture his immigrant parents brought with them to America nor within the borders of Italy itself, what with its infuriating mix of high art and low purpose. But it is this unresolved quality of Luzzi’s musings—the back and forth tugging of a splendid mind—that makes this book so alive and such a pleasure to read.

An editor's twists and turns

How’s this for an opener?“My godfather investigated my father for the FBI and had a scar on the palm of his left hand from a machine-gun bullet shot by Baby Face Nelson. My uncle had ‘Frederick Engels’ for first and middle names. My father went to Mexico and spied on Trotsky for the Communist Party of the United States.”If you don’t find this introduction to...

The legend of Red Cloud, forgotten until now

While Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Geronimo are embedded far more solidly in American folklore, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin contend that Red Cloud, the relatively obscure Oglala Sioux chief, was the most cunning and effective Indian general to confront the U.S. Army during the stampede of Western expansion that followed the Civil War. Prolonged war, with specific territorial aims, had not been an...

The definitive biography of our 28th President

Born in Virginia in 1856 to a Presbyterian minister of modest means, Thomas Woodrow Wilson first flowered as an academic. He joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1890, became one of the school’s most beloved professors and was elevated to its presidency 12 years later. Throughout this period of intensive teaching and public lecturing, he published a torrent of magazine articles...

For better or for the worst

Barely a year after her marriage in 1987, Wendy Plump embarked on the first of three volcanically passionate affairs she would immerse herself in before she and her husband, Bill, began having children. She did so, she freely admits, simply because she wanted to, because it was so exciting, so different from the humdrum of domestic life. But each affair was undercut by such feelings of guilt...

A darkly funny tale of a lawless childhood

To hug him or to slug him? That is the question one ponders while reading Moshe Kasher’s gut-wrenching account of his youth, during which he was both emotionally fragile and socially insufferable. Although he’s now a high-profile standup comic, Kasher offers precious little to laugh about here, only the blackest of humor. Still, his book is compelling for its grim candor and...

The life of Yossarian's creator

In Just One Catch, his reconstruction of the life of novelist, playwright and screenwriter Joseph Heller, Tracy Daugherty has also illuminated the post-World War II culture of American fiction—from the emergence of Jewish sensibilities as a key narrative element to the influence of mass advertising and television to the corporatization of book publishing. It’s about time for such a...